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Windgate Foundation Donates $40M for Art District at UA

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The University of Arkansas announced Wednesday that the Windgate Charitable Foundation has donated $40 million to Campaign Arkansas for the creation of a new Windgate Art & Design District in south Fayetteville.

The district will be developed close to campus, near Martin Luther King Boulevard and Hill Avenue. It will feature new buildings for art and design classrooms, labs, studios and, potentially, a public gallery space.

“This is a tremendous step forward,” UA Chancellor Joseph Steinmetz said in a news release. “Through this partnership with the Windgate Charitable Foundation, the University of Arkansas will be able to achieve nationally competitive standing in the arts, which will in turn place the state of Arkansas on the map as one of the most innovative leaders in the global arts community.

“As a land-grant institution, we are charged with serving the public interest through outreach,” he said. “Thanks to the Windgate Charitable Foundation’s generosity, we will now be able to do this for our  community in an unprecedented way. We thank the Windgate Charitable Foundation for this amazing gift.”

The district aims to expand the reach of the university’s art school, which was established in August thanks to a $120 million gift from the Walton Family Charitable Support Foundation. The school, in the J. William Fulbright College of Arts & Sciences, is the first and only accredited, collegiate school of art in the state of Arkansas.

“Our board strives to develop and support the arts in many states, and the Windgate Art & Design District will be an outstanding example of the foundation’s highest ideals for the arts and education,” John Brown, executive director of the Windgate Charitable Foundation, said in a news release. “In fact, this commitment is the largest single grant awarded by the foundation in our 25-year history.”

Robyn Horn, a member of the foundation’s board, added that the district could provide an opportunity to engage the community with programming that is free, open and accessible to the public.

The foundation already made a significant impact on the school, having donated more than $2 million to the former Department of Art in 2014 to expand curricula, improve teaching techniques, fund opportunities for student travel, enhance technologies and procure new equipment.

The school used $500,000 of the gift, along with $8 million from the university, to build its sculpture facility, which opened last year. Architects from Modus Studio in Fayetteville and El Dorado Inc. in Kansas City, Missouri, designed the building, which houses studio classrooms and shops for sculpture, the school’s wood shop and advanced technology lab, graduate student studios and classroom space for the school’s freshman foundation classes.

According to the release, the number of students majoring in art history, art education, graphic design and studio art has increased significantly since then.

The university said the creation of the district will also free up space in the its Fine Arts Center, helping the School of Art develop planned graduate programs in art education and art history.

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